The story of living in spite of melanoma, metastasis, vaccines, anti-PD-1, lung removal, and stereotactic radiation. The story of life with family and friends. {Posts under ~ Sew Chaotically, Travel Chaotically, and Chaotic Cookery also housed within! A girl's gotta have fun!}

About Me

Who am I? That is a question the rest of you could probably answer better than I. I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, pediatric nurse practitioner, cook, teacher, gardener, lover of words and music, occasional seamstress, and homemaker. I do have a couple of talents of questionable merit: I can create a decent meal in less than 30 minutes. I can feed and/or soothe almost any baby. And I can remember practically any song I've ever heard. For the rest, I'd rather those who know me decide.

Now there is this:Retrospective
Analysis of the Efficacy of Pembrolizumab in Melanoma Patients With
Brain Metastasis. Dagogo-Jack, Lanfanchi, Gainor, et al. J
Immunother. 2017 Feb 17.A
total of 50% of patients with melanoma will develop brain metastasis
(BM). Pembrolizumab was approved for treatment of metastatic melanoma
on the basis of significant systemic antitumor activity. Because of
low enrollment of patients with BM in pembrolizumab trials, efficacy
against melanoma BM remains unknown. We reviewed records of 89
consecutive patients with melanoma treated with pembrolizumab at our
institution between May 1, 2014 and October 31, 2015 to determine the
time to progression. Thirty-six (40%) patients had BM before
pembrolizumab. Twenty-six (72%) patients with BM had received prior
treatment for BM. With median follow-up of 17.2 months, 54 patients
(61%) developed progressive disease on pembrolizumab. Intracranial
progression occurred in 19 patients (21%), 3 of whom did not have BM
before treatment. Median time to progression at any site was 6 months
for those without BM (n=53), 5 months for those with treated BM
(n=26), and 1.2 months for patients with untreated BM (n=10). Using a
Cox regression model adjusted for baseline factors, there was a
statistically significant reduction in the hazard of progression for
patients without BM and patients with treated BM compared with
those with untreated BM. In conclusion, melanoma patients with
pretreated BM can have durable systemic responses to pembrolizumab.
Large, prospective studies are needed to evaluate the intracranial
antitumor activity of pembrolizumab in melanoma patients with
untreated BM.Basically, this report simply confirms all of the above. Anti-PD-1 (pembro/Keytruda or nivo/Opdivo) work in the brain. They work better when combined with radiation. There! I said it....AGAIN!!! - c